Electrical Fires in the Home: casualities are on the increase

[ARW]

Any comments.

IMHO I think this means "we want Electrical Condition Reports to be compulsory" and that this is the thin egde of the wedge.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , ARW writes

Are they going to issue warranty certificates and carry insurance to cover unfound problems?:-)

>

[Andy Cap]

>> Any comments.

It's highly likely that it's for the very reason they put the fear of God into everyone about touching anything connected with electricity and they can't afford to get the work done professionally, that dangerous installations are on the increase. When you could buy simple DIY book on home electrics, I'm pretty sure that most people were quite capable of doing an adequate and safe job.

Andy C

[Bernard Peek]

>> Any comments.

As amateurs are now effectively excluded from working on domestic electrics the increase can only be attributed to the increased use of electricians. We need to ban them.

[John Williamson]

Especially with this sort of thing happening?:-

asked why he kept the wiring manual for all these years, Jim Gilbert revealed: ?The Eaton wiring manual is compact with everything you ever need to know included. The manual is kept in my drawer and I still tend to use it on a daily basis. I?m still learning something new from it every day!?

Congratulations to the writers of the 1970s for anticipating all the changes in regulations since then.

[Robin]

Very probably; plus continuing their campaign against the department's proposals to relax (slightly) Part P.

I also suspect some spin the in the choice of 2004 as the baseline. DCLG's fire stats[1]. showed there were 9 fatalities from "electrical distribution" in 2010-11. With such small numbers one big fire can make all the difference. And as usual NAPIT also appear to count in their "10 percent caused by household wiring" fires caused by leads to appliances given the way the stats seem to score things [2].

[1] Para. 3.5 has "Electrical distribution (leads to appliances, wires and cables)..."

[John Rumm]

>> Any comments.

Seems like the "as predicted here" result of part P...

Now those stats....

They start off with 38k5 fires, of which 8470 were electrical. Then say

10% caused by household wiring. Is that supposed to be 10% of the 8470, or is that supposed to be 10% of the 38k5?

Looking at the link Robin found: "Other common sources of ignition were: electrical appliances (12 per cent), electrical distribution (10 per cent)" it would suggest 10% of the 38k5

[js.b1]

Junk stats for Part P began with a junk BRE paper.

All the electrical bodies need to be stripped of their charitable trust sta= tus, that could bring in useful revenue for starters.

All members of the IET WR committee need to be required to declare their co= mmercial interests.

Government was taken for a ride, with commercial interests writing details.= Fires are on the increase due to a mismatch between cost & economic enviro= nment. The huge increase in "portable appliances" is likely to make things = much worse.

The real interesting bit will be a power cut / gas loss which results in hi= gh usage of electric heaters long unused or of poor quality, combined with = wiring that once fine for a table lamp suddenly gets asked to supply 2kW 4k= W 6kW 8kW. Our capacity margin is being turned into the third world through= miss-management.

Could force Melons to tick a box on their bill when SmartMeters come in whe= re they can be first to lose power in order to avoid burning coal or gas.

[Brian Gaff]

From what I see of failed items, the problem is usually misuse or shall we say unseen animal damage or age of applience or installation.

Brian